Stitches & Picks S1:Ep 12 - Did Kristen Launch Casting Knits?

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Episode 12 - Did Kristen Launch Casting Knits? Video and Podcast Transcript

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Episode 12 - Did Kristen Launch Casting Knits? - 4K

Dave Dougherty: Hey there, what's going on? Just got done editing the latest episode, uh, this episode, and towards the end, our meeting software and the technology just went kaput. So, um, the episode ends rather abruptly. However, I think, um, what we have is, is worth listening to, albeit short. Uh, but it's on a topic I think we'll, we'll revisit.

Um. You know, you'll hear Kristen talk about some of the struggles that she's been having with her own, um, with her own site, and getting that launched, and, um, I think it's really relatable for a lot of people, so, um, might do some special episodes, or some full on episodes with her, I have to discuss that, um, so we'll see what happens, but, um, yeah, thanks, and I'll see you in the next episode.

Later. All right, welcome to Stitches and Picks. This will be a fun episode. Today, uh, because Kristen doesn't know what's coming and so I've been, you know, editing down all the different things and taking notes on, you know, questions that we didn't circle back on or things that were stated maybe nine months ago, but never followed up on.

And I was reminded of it because a good friend of mine called me up and said, Hey, I checked out the first couple episodes. Dave, you're boring when you don't, you know, at monotone when you, when you're not super excited about it. So that's my bit of feedback to work on my tone of voice. Um, so thank you, Steve.

Uh, if you're listening, but the other thing that is gonna focus our, uh, conversation today is in multiple recordings. Uh, Kristen, you stated that you were going to have casting this launched by October. It is now. recording date, October 28th. You got three days. Are we going to hit that mark?

Kristen Juve: No, no, we're not.

Dave Dougherty: All right.

Kristen Juve: Honestly, because I'm a project manager for my day to day work and project manager myself is the hardest thing to do. And I don't want to do it. And so even when I put down a date, I'm like, yeah, it's fine.

Honestly, like, I've made my choices. I will own up to it. I have made my choices to spend time... A little bit more in, in this world, in Stitches and Pics world, Um, than my Casting Knits world. So like, when I have free time, I am definitely dedicating it to this more than I am Casting Knits at this point. Um, and I'm choosing my kiddo and hanging out with my, my family and my friends now that the world feels like it's opened up a little bit more.

Um, instead of doing, and like, you're gonna freaking kill me. I kind of picked up, I didn't, I kind of picked up a new hobby. Yeah. It's not, it's very not time consuming. And it has a lot to do with knitting. So that's why I figured I could get away with it. But I literally was like sitting there like doing it and I'm like, Dave's gonna have some thoughts about this.

Um, no, it's and it's so, I love it cause it's nerdy. But it's like, it's called needle felting. So you take wool and you like felt it with a needle. You, like, stab something like a gazillion times. It's fantastic. Um. So it's cathartic. I'm not very good at it yet. But, like, I took a class because I wanted to, like, what's that?

It's cathartic. Yeah.

Dave Dougherty: It's cathartic, yes. Yeah. Just stabbing things over and over again to calm down.

Kristen Juve: Knitters joke that they're like, you don't want to mess with a knitter. We stab and choke things all the time. Cause that's like the movement you do for knitting. Um, but I was like, you know what? I want to be a little social. I want to like learn something new and kind of expand my creativity a little bit.

So I took a class and it was put on by like a work thing. Um, so it had like triple benefits for me. Cause I'm like trying to always figure out how I can like maximize my time or whatever. And. Not always, because sometimes I just sit and stare at a wall because I'm sick or whatever. Um, and I was like, oh, I kind of like this, and it has a little bit to do And if it kind of rekindles that passion for knitting, and it did.

And I'm also knitting gifts for Christmas this year. Because I'm a masochist. Yeah. And I'm not just knitting a small gift, I'm knitting a sweater. So I've been spending a lot of time doing that.

Dave Dougherty: That, yeah, that eats up a lot of time. Yeah, yeah. That eats up a lot of time. Yeah. You know, okay, so a couple of, couple of fronts on that.

So, um. Good Anya for keeping the passion alive, because that's definitely one thing, right? Like, um, especially when you try to do websites or side hustles or whatever else on something you're passionate about. I mean, you can kill it by doing, you know, doing something like this.

Kristen Juve: Here's the other thing, like in line with killing it, I've been thinking about lately is if you get too To an expert level in your hobby or in your side thing, you lose your audience because your audience is not along on this journey with you.

Like, I know like a bunch of different techniques for like dropping, like a drop stitch or whatever. And my, and if I'm like, Oh, if I assume my audience already knows that because I know that I'm going to totally lose them. In like some of my content or whatever. So I think taking a derailed, like tangential hobby is remind myself what it's like to learn something again and puts me back in that audience mindset, which I've kind of liked too.

So I haven't totally like not thought about it. Right. Sorry.

Dave Dougherty: No, it's fine. Cause the, um, that is definitely something for me with. With, with BGO and then starting the, the stitches thing with you, um, I realized I was doing a lot more of the, the production stuff that I'd like to do, like the audio production, the video production, um, but I wasn't playing for me at all, you know, and so that, that portion of it needed to be revisited and so I've been doing that a

You're revisiting some of the songs that I've just like almost finished but haven't completed yet So looking at those and being like, okay, how can I get them more close to being done ready to release them? You know where they are now. Um i'm trying to formulate a plan with that but um Yeah, so, okay, well at least you're staying within that, that knitting piece of it.

Kristen Juve: I will own it, and like, it's not, we, I know that we've talked about this in other episodes too, I'm the person that like, builds the stuff and never launches it. And that's very much why this dynamic between you and me works. You've definitely pushed me to launch this, which Has, has helped me a lot. And I am, it's not that I don't doubt, I don't doubt that I will launch CastingKnit's website and have the, and my first pattern.

I'm still working on that pattern. That is, that is not gone away. Um, in fact, I have more drawings for new patterns too that I haven't done yet. Um, it's almost like it's, I don't know, like it's, it's right there, so I'm like, I got time, I guess.

Dave Dougherty: Well, so I think the way that we're going to launch these things, this episode will come right after when I talked about...

launch story. So if anybody's, um, hasn't heard that one, go back and listen to it. Um, but you know, one of the things with launching the guitar site really was this like, you know, it was just like four year buildup of having the idea, watching the market, looking at the stuff.

Kristen Juve: Time out four years

Dave Dougherty: from idea.

And purchase of domain. I got time!

Kristen Juve: If it took you four years, I've got

Dave Dougherty: time! Yeah, but I didn't publicly state anything. As soon as I said publicly that I was gonna do something, I did it.

Kristen Juve: What does that matter? I don't really, I don't see, I don't see the significance. Uh

Dave Dougherty: huh, uh huh, yeah. So... Yeah, so I found the domain in like 2014 and just went this is too good to pass up.

I'm gonna buy it I don't know what I'm gonna do with it. And then it took me a little bit of You know looking at okay. Is this viable? How do I do that? Right, but I did get to a point to your earlier bit where I had most of the content done. It was all packaged, ready to go and I was finding myself tweaking things constantly rather than actually just doing it.

So then that's where I finally just hit the button because it's like. And it's done now, if I tweak it, so what, like it's already live. And, um, so that was, that was good just to hit it, like works and all right. Just to get it out there. Cause that is that, that first barrier, right? Yeah. Um, so as a serial non launcher, how,

Kristen Juve: what are you going to ask me?

Dave Dougherty: How has actually, you know, post launching, um, now I'm just making up words after. Launching Stitches and doing this whole thing, has that been rewarding enough to get you closer to the edge of letting go on the

Kristen Juve: casting? I think that's what makes it make it all feel more tangible. Cause like, oh yeah, like And I, I literally know that I can sit down and go, what do I need to launch?

What, what are my deliverables? I need to launch my website and have this pattern up. How do I work that back and cut that down into pieces of work? And then literally go, okay, I'm going to do that on Tuesday. I'm going to do that on Saturday. I'm going to, I could do that. I know I can do that. I probably should do it.

I know I should do it.

So I'll like.

I don't know. I have all the excuses right now. I think it feels a little scarier because it's just me. Like, the Stitches and Picks thing, it's you and me. Right. And, like I told, I think I texted you one night, I was like, social content for this just like, Comes easily for me because it's, we're talking, we, it's easy to pull quotes from this or do like little clips or whatever, and it's the content that we're trying to talk about.

We can like actually pull from, but I don't have that in knitting and I don't want to, I want to talk about. My pattern, but that's not the only thing I want to talk about. And I have a strategy for casting knits on social and how I market, but I know if I don't market, no one's going to buy my pattern. So it's like, I'm almost struggling with what to say and how to show up in marketing casting knits right now in a way that feels right to me.

And I think that might be probably my biggest blocker. It's not the tech, like the tactical, how to do things. I know how to do all that stuff. It's more of like, and I don't. I don't know. I know what is my niche, what separates me out from, from different, like when I was in my group class the other weekend, um, where we learned how to felt knit, felt, not knit, needle felt.

Excuse me. That is a different, different thing. BT dubs. Um, I asked people, I was like, cause someone brought their sweater that they're knitting. And I was like, Y'all like, I did like a little mini anecdotal poll. I was like, y'all like to make sweaters and they're like, yeah. I'm like, do you like to make seamless sweaters?

Or do you like to make ones that are in like panels? And they're like, Oh no, seamless hands on seamless. And I was like, this is, this is my niche. Like, this is one of my, like my niche area. So I need to figure out, I don't know. It's so hard with like. Now I'm just like stream of consciousness being in your nine to five and then switching context and being like, okay in knitting If i'm doing seamless, what are the things and it's like there's such an overlap with other niches that how do you differentiate them?

We probably need to I probably need a whole hour to talk to you about this and like I need to work this out.

Dave Dougherty: Okay, well we can

Kristen Juve: get a start Be held accountable

Dave Dougherty: when I thought I'd you know, some people will be like, oh my god He's throwing you under the bus. It's like no I just, I want to know why and find out, out of curiosity.

Like, I know, you know, we don't necessarily have to say this publicly, but some of the stuff that you've said with, you know, having kids and just maintaining the family stuff, like, Yeah, stuff happens, you know, it gets in the way.

Kristen Juve: I have an ear infection right now. And I'm on meds for it. So like it does happen.

Um, no, I, it's funny. Cause like, this is the type of, this is exactly why you and I started these masterminds though, is because, uh, just the two of us, like holding each other accountable, being like, Hey, you did mention that. Like, what are you doing? I prefer to be held accountable. Like. Do I want to be like held to the grill every single day?

No, but I think it's completely fair for you to ask me about it And also like that is literally what we're talking about here Like we are on this journey for our own stuff And I'm gonna be really real and I am not gonna shy away from the choices that I've made I'm not gonna shy away from I still want to do it if I didn't want to do it I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to launch casting this I wouldn't be here Right if I didn't believe that I could do it.

I wouldn't be here So, I'm, I'm totally fine with you checking in with me. I'm gonna come up with a, we need to, like, I wanna, we, let's talk, let's set up a time to talk about, like, Can we do a working session on my ca on Casting Nibs for marketing? Cause I think I need to like, process some of this stuff out loud.

And like, write it down and come up with this like, not social media content, but like an actual like, content strategy to it. Cause I, I've done it for a bunch of other things and it comes easy. And this one is not coming easy to me. So I think I need another, another person on it.

Dave Dougherty: So, just to tease some stuff out of that, do you think it's a channel problem?

An audience definition problem? Which would then lead into a

Kristen Juve: channel problem? audience definition, but I think it's more tone of voice, and like brand,

it's brand and tone of voice.

Dave Dougherty: So, like, if you were, you know where the audience is. So if I say Pinterest, LinkedIn, or, um, Instagram, where are you going between those three? Instagram. Okay. Um,

what about Instagram, TikTok? Is there

Kristen Juve: a difference there? But they're two different audiences. Okay.

Which doesn't mean they can't share content or tone of voice or brand. Cause obviously I want to show up the same in both places, but I don't think that it would be a miss to, I'm saying this in a very weird way. It would be advantageous for me to actually like cater content to the formatting and audience on each of the platforms.

Right. I think it's, like, I remember when we first talked about casting nits and I, like, had this idea and I, like, I came up with casting nits because the whole, like, casting nits is, like, a nautical theme. Mm hmm. And I even have, like, a brain web of, like, all the nautical type stuff. And I've had such a hard time designing around that stuff.

I don't want to design around that. So I don't know that that's the right fit. I think that's probably where this is coming in. Like, I love those ideas and I want to incorporate them in places for just certain design elements of sweaters. So like I'm only doing sweaters. Yes. I know that I'm only doing seamless sweaters.

Yes. That limits me in some ways, opens up a lot of doors in other ways. Totally fine with that. It means that my audience is a little bit more of an advanced knitter potentially, or someone who wants to jump into being more of an advanced knitter because there's some techniques occasionally, most of the time that I'll be utilizing.

Um, But when it comes to design aspects, like I want to design, I'm this, this is what it is. I want to the sweaters that I want to design are not nautical

and I don't want to be like boxed in by that.

Dave Dougherty: Well, you know, casting knits as a, um, an idea is a. Good brand, you know, it's fun and pithy. Um, but yeah, I mean that doesn't have to be the only thing you do.

Kristen Juve: I agree, but that's like, I want to make sure that the brand that I have... I don't want to be all over the place. I want, but I don't want to, hmm, this is what I find with some knitters.

There's like, they're all over the place and it's chaotic and you have no idea that they're even a designer and they can buy their patterns or where they can buy, you can buy their patterns. Then you've got some people who are so branded that you're like, it's not exciting. It's not human. It's not relatable.

I want to be in that. Slightly to the side where I'm brand enough people know what I'm about, they know what, that I'm a designer, they know that I can, they can come to me and, and where they can buy their patterns, whether it's on Ravelry or on my website, you know, like, all of that stuff. Mm hmm. But I, I think I'm worried that casting knits, like, and I know casting knits could be interpreted in many ways besides nautical, so I know that it could be like, I've thought about like, people probably think of like, they could interpret it as like casting like, Uh, like, uh, actor casting for, like, things.

That's obviously not what it means for me. But, how do I reconcile? I just don't have, like, a tone of voice. I don't have a brand. Well. That's, like, concise.

Dave Dougherty: Okay, so hearing, hearing you say some of that stuff. Some of it is not, it's not in your control. Right. Like the brand you have, you, I think a lot of people struggle with this.

You spend all this time coming up with the names, the typing, like all the, all the design stuff, which is fun and exciting. And, you know, yay. As soon as you release the idea into the world, it's not yours anymore. It's up to everybody else to make their own interpretation of it. That's true. So, if somebody takes it as a casting thing, that's on them.

If somebody takes it as the nautical thing, cool.

Kristen Juve: Um. But don't you like, when you have a brand and you have a name for a brand, If it's, if it leans one way in the, in like context of the English language, wouldn't you expect then that you see more nautical themed designs?

And it's not that there's like, for me, there's a plethora of like nautical options, like I get, like, I can do that, but I, that's not, I want to just like design and find, I just want to design the sweaters that I want my own wardrobe or that like, I think would look really good on someone I know. And I don't know, I guess I could just, I know I can just do that, but I didn't, how do I like go to market with that?

I feel like everyone's like I designed this sweater because I really loved the ocean. And it reminded me of that, which there's nothing wrong with that. I'm using a mocking voice, but that's not what I want for me.

Dave Dougherty: Following your logic though. That's what I, yes. If banana Republic only did stuff around That name, first off, I mean, I wouldn't cut the mustard now anyway, um, given the cultural context of it.

They would be making linen shirts and that's it. Yeah. Right? But they don't. Fair point. They make peacoats, they make, you know, a whole bunch of stuff that doesn't fit me, and that's fine. That's lax. That's not for me. Right? Um. And it, it's for a particular, a particular person, and it's, you know, what's in a name, right?

Kristen Juve: So you're saying let the work evolve to what it's gonna be, and the name will be branded by the work.

Dave Dougherty: Right, I mean, look at some of these, some of these names, right, like Harley Davidson. Without the history of a motorcycle company, you would not associate those two names with motorcycles right away. Right?

Like it's the body of work that gets collected into sort of the brand thought. Um, you know, over time, right? You can think Red Bull. What does it, what does, what does a colored cow have to do with, um, A drink. Nothing. You know, um, it's just, it's a name and whatever you build off of it. Yeah,

Kristen Juve: but then it's like cheeky versus like just mismatched.

Dave Dougherty: If it's successful, it's not mismatched and everybody will be giving you leeway, you know,

if it's not successful, they're like, well,

Kristen Juve: yeah, Brandon, the other option is to completely rename it, but I don't want to do that either.

Dave Dougherty: Well, so, but it does fit your brand, your, your personal brand, if you want to go with that direction of that kind of. Earthy brick, you know, like when we talked about building your studio, right?

You'd said like I want the old windows and the brick and the artist's loft and that kind of vibe So why wouldn't you do sort of a scandinavian? you know, um I don't know scandinavian seascape as You know your title image or something or if you want to get rid of the get rid of the nautical piece Like just don't show water